Hello! As promised on Monday, I'm back with a tutorial today on how to make a very, very easy collapsible play tent for your little ones. These are such fun that they are worth the effort whether you're planning a camping-themed bash or not. And at less than $20 each, you get a long of bang for your buck.

If you have kids, you've probably seen these tents around. This one, from Land of Nod is, in classic Land of Nod fashion, adorable. And pricey. I was looking for at least two tents, and I didn't want to shell out that kind of cash - for two, I'd be talking $300. I have seen so many tutorials and homemade tents floating around the Internet that I was pretty confident we could do it ourselves. So, following this tutorial for materials, I set about doing it.

Here's what you need for each tent:

1. 3 - 48" long wooden 3/4" wooden dowels per tent.

2. 4 - 1 x 48" lengths of trim. My hardware store sells these in 8 foot increments, so I bought two for each tent and cut them down myself. (My hardware store also charges for cuts, but Home Depot and others will often do cuts for free).

3. A piece of material, roughly 48" wide by 80" long. You can use whatever you've got on hand. Twin bedsheets work well; I used two 53" x 84" curtains I had - one for each tent, which I trimmed length-wise for a better fit. More on that in a second.

4. A drill and spade bit.

5. Sewing skills or no-sew hem tape. (I recommend the hem tape).

6. Extras: pool noodle, twine, stain, rubber stoppers.

1. First, if you need to, cut your eight-feet lengths of trim into 4'- lengths.

2. On each 4' piece, measure down 6 inches from the end (any end) and draw a line. To make sure your drilled holes will all be even, check them against one another before breading out the drill. Then, position the spade bit in (roughly) the center of each line, width-wise, and drill, baby, drill

3. Flip over your pieces of trim and measure down 1.5" on each. Double check against the other pieces of trim and use your spade bit to drill holes on this end of each piece. Now you're done with power tools and move onto the Martha portion of this project.

4. Set up your tent, preliminarily, by inserting one dowel through the top (the six inch side) of two trim pieces at either end of the dowel. X those trim pieces...you know, to form a tent. Thread a dowel through the bottom of the pieces, through the 1.5" holes.

5. Drape your fabric over the tent to get an idea of how long you want it - that is, how wide you think you'll make your tent. It's fine to leave some length to your piece to allow for making the tent wider or skinnier, but keep in mind that the taughtly-drawn fabric lends a lot of structural integrity to the structure. I figured I'd want me tent wide enough for two little kids to chill inside, and cut down my fabric from about 84" to more like 78", accordingly.

6. Once you've cut down your fabric, you can attach it to the tent anyway you like. You can cut holes in the bottom and loop twine through to tie around the bottom dowels; you can staple the fabric to the sides/trim pieces, or you can do what I did: create rod pockets through which I threaded the bottom dowels.

Since I started with a curtain, one side of my fabric panel already had a rod pocket, which was really easy to thread my dowel through before inserting the dowel through the trim pieces to make the then. I made another rod pocket on the trimmed end of my fabric by folding the fabric over the rod and using no-sew tape to make a tight, smooth pocket right over the rod. If you sew a pocket, you'll want to leave yourself enough room to easily slide the rod in and out of the pocket.

I went with rod pockets over staples or tying because I liked the neatness of the finished product, and because I wanted my pup tents to be super, super collapsible. If you have the space, you can attach the fabric in a more permanent way, like staples, and just fold the tent flat for storage. Here it is leaning against my bedroom wall. It's not a ton of space, but still more than I have.

So I didn't attach my fabric at all, other than the rod pockets. I thought about, and may still buy, large binder clips to clip the fabric to the tent openings. I think that will make the fabric even more taught and look nice, without involving staples. But I couldn't find any before the party and for now, things are fine. Here's everything broken down:

The other extras to consider, in addition to binder clips or staples, are twine and a pool noodle. I found the twine to be helpful in keeping the rods inserted through the holes in the trim pieces stationary. I just wound some thick twine around and between all the pieces to create something for the pieces to grip onto.

Finally, youmight notice a rounded appearance to the top rod. That's from a pool noodle I cut to the same size of the dowel and slid over the dowel before draping my fabric over it. If you want that rounded look, or like I did, wanted to create more tension in the fabric, the pool noodle is a great, simple option.

And that's it! The DIY tent project you can't afford not to do! Seriously, these things are so expensive to buy and so easy to make. It's rare that an equation works out so clearly on the DIY side, and here it does. Although I will note that Target just released (like, yesterday) a new line
that includes a tee pee. I'm not sure how much it is, but it's presumably cheaper than anything you can find at Land of Nod.

Thanks for checking in today! If you do build a tent, send us pics!